


How We Went From Something’s Missing

by Le_Tournesol



Series: Found Family [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: AU, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jake Peralta has ADHD, Kidfic, M/M, Ray and Kevin become Jake’s father-figures, Roger Peralta’s A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:17:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22213021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Tournesol/pseuds/Le_Tournesol
Summary: AU where Raymond and Kevin move to Jake’s neighborhood when he’s a child and become his father-figures and found family.
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Karen Peralta, Kevin Cozner & Jake Peralta, Ray Holt & Jake Peralta
Series: Found Family [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608238
Comments: 62
Kudos: 691





	How We Went From Something’s Missing

**Author's Note:**

> Bc reasons I once thought Darlene and Karen were sisters and that’s when I started writing this so instead I made them close friends. Just FYI. Also! I hc here that Karen gets close to Kevin and Captain Holt super fast bc they’ve got shared interests super fast she’s not just leaving Jake with strangers I swear. Karen P is a good mom doing her best here. Also I just assumed when I started this Gina’s dad was just estranged and maybe lived elsewhere.

I.

Jake is five the first time he talks to Mr. Holt and Mr. Cozner. 

The couple had moved into the neighborhood the previous year, and he’d seen them at the housewarming someone had thrown. The two attended a number of local events, like Christmas parties and bake sales, and they even hosted a few socials at their own home. Regardless, Jake spent most of those gatherings around the other children after offering a polite, obligatory greeting. The couple seemed nice, even if they were a bit more serious and stuffy than Jake was used to. 

Jake knew Mr. Cozner was a teacher at a nearby university; his mom liked to go to museums with him and talk about books and art. Mr. Holt was a cop; when his dad left them for the third time, Mr. Holt promised he’d keep an eye on their house and told them they could call any time. 

Hand-in-hand with his frazzled mother, he stands on the stoop under the assessing gaze of Mr. Cozner while his mom apologizes effusively. 

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, Kevin. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you all hadn’t agreed to watch him,” she says as she pats Jake’s backpack. “His asthma medication and inhaler are in his bag. This is the number for the hospital room. Please call me if you need anything.” 

“Think nothing of it, Karen; go be with your mother,” Mr. Cozner tells her.

“Thank you,” she repeats before she drops to her knees so that she’s eye level with Jake. “Be good, sweetie. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” 

“Yes, Mommy,” Jake promises. “Is Nana going to be okay?”

Karen pulls her son into her arms and squeezes him, “The doctor’s say she’s going to be fine. I just don’t want her to be alone right now, but Aunt Darlene is on her way back into town. She should be here in a few hours.”

Jake brightens at the news, “Gina’s coming back early?”

“Oh, no, baby, Aunt Darlene’s going to drop her off with her daddy and his family for a few days.” 

Jake scrunches up his nose, but he doesn’t complain. Karen wonders if he’s disappointed that Gina won’t be back, or if he’s jealous that she’s with her father. Instead of asking, she stands, brushes some imaginary dirt off his shoulders, and presses a kiss to the top of his head, “I’ll be back in a few hours to pick you up. I love you, Jake.” 

“Love you, Mommy,” he responds, and then she’s descending the concrete stairs and getting in the car to drive away. She waves. 

When their beat up sedan rounds the corner and disappears, Jake’s posture deflates, and he curls in on himself defensively. 

He worries when she leaves. 

Mommy always comes back, but what if she doesn’t this time, like daddy?

He remembers how mad his mom was when his dad didn’t pick him up from t-ball a year ago,, and she’d found Jake all alone on the field at sunset. Big boys didn’t cry, but he might’ve cried a little bit that day. Mommy called his dad, who had left them for the second time but was trying to be more present in Jake’s life, but he didn’t answer. They didn’t hear from him for months. 

If Mommy didn’t come for him, what would he do? Call Nana? She’s sick. Call Gina? She would tell Aunt Darlene to let him live with them, right? 

A hand lands on Jake’s shoulder, and he startles.

Thankfully, Mr. Cozner doesn’t remark on it. He just gives Jake a strange look. 

“Come, Jake, let’s get out of the cold,” Mr. Cozner says as he gestures to the foyer. Jake follows him, the door closes, and then he bites his lip as he takes in the enormous house and the finery. “You can hang your belongings here,” Mr. Cozner tells him. “Have you eaten dinner?” 

Jake shakes his head. 

“I’ll set out a plate for you then. Would you like a snack in the meantime?”

“Okay,” Jake murmurs. 

Mr. Cozner leads him into the kitchen and proceeds to cut up an apple, which Jake eats obediently even though he doesn’t like the skin. He sits at the island, and his feet dangle a foot above the ground. He studies the room.

His eyes dart back to the entryway when the door opens and a rush of wintry air blows through the house.

“Raymond is home early,” Mr. Cozner excuses himself, and Jake hears the two men conversing in low voices before they step back into the kitchen. 

Mr. Holt is clad in his police uniform, and Jake stares and thinks about the nice cop that came once when his mommy and daddy were fighting too loud. 

“Hello, Jacob,” Mr. Holt greets in a formal tone. “How are you?”

“Good,” Jake glances away as he answers. “How are you, Mr. Holt?”

They exchange pleasantries, and the cop goes upstairs to clean up before they eat. Mr. Cozner asks Jake to help him cook dinner, so Jake washes and strings green beans while the older man seasons chicken in a skillet. 

Jake can’t remember the last time dinner didn’t come from a can. 

The adults ask him about school as they break bread and then discuss their own days. They let him watch TV in the living room. When it gets late, they set him up in the guest room. 

When they think he’s asleep, they talk about him in the hallway. 

He listens because he knows it’s important to have an idea of what adults are thinking. 

It helps him keep from making them angry.

“He’s rather quiet,” Mr. Holt comments without inflection.

“Yes, his mother says he was a very rambunctious toddler, but he’s gotten progressively more reserved. She wants him to talk with a psychologist.” 

Jake doesn’t know what a lot of those words mean, but the conversation still worries him. Mr. Cozner continues, “She mentioned that he tries to stay up and wait for her if she’s out late.” 

The voices become too muffled to make out for a moment, and he thinks he hears the word abandoned, which scares him because what if Mommy isn’t coming back? 

He squeezes his eyes more tightly so he doesn’t cry.

He holds his breath when it doesn’t work so he doesn’t sob. 

Outside the door, the conversation goes on unaware, and Mr. Holt says, “I see. I will check on him before we retire.” 

“I think that’s for the best,” Mr. Cozner agrees. 

Someone pushes the door open, and a shaft of light stretches across the hardwood floor. Jake tried to relax and feign sleep. 

It must work because the door closes. When the footsteps fade away, he crawls out of the bed and drags the quilt with him to the windowsill, watching for headlights. 

And he waits.

II. 

Mr. Cozner and his husband refuse his mother’s offer of payment for keeping him, but they do accept her invitation to dine with them.

It takes a little cajoling, but she insists she must thank them properly. 

She and Jake spend the morning making an effort to clean up the house, but they both get caught up in the Christmas special they turned on as background noise. No work gets done until it goes off an hour later.

And then it’s a scramble.

Jake puts his toys away and runs the vacuum while his mom stows some of her larger art supplies in the garage. Afterward, she gets to work on the food and tells him how to set the table.

It looks strange with four of everything. 

It makes him think of a long forgotten conversation where someone asked his parents if they were going to have more kids. His dad laughed and hugged his mom a little closer before he turned his full attention on Jake, “What do you think, sport? You want a little brother or sister?”

Yes, he’d thought, but he doesn’t recall what he actually said. 

He remains an only child, who typically dines with his mother in front of the TV. 

And four table settings makes it look like a family lives here.

His brow furrows, and he doesn’t immediately notice when his mother sidles up next to him to sit out her famous crunchy potato casserole. She smoothes his curls absently and surveys him, “You look so serious, baby. What are you thinking about?” 

Jake shrugs and asks, “Can I go play until they get here?”

“Sure,” his mother answers, and he barrels up the stairs and out of sight.

Karen frowns and worries her lip.

She tries to reconcile this solemn child with her vivacious, outgoing son. He’s typically his cheerful self, but sometimes she catches him in these odd, quiet moods, and they worry her. When she attended his first parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago, his teacher even commented on his behavior.

“Jake is very sweet boy,” Mrs. Gaines said. “He’s bright, eager to learn, and he loves to play with the other kids. He can get a little hyper and distracted, and he rushes through some assignments, but he’s always polite.” The teacher paused, “I do have two concerns, though.” She’d gone on to say that Jake had spells where he was rather withdrawn, and she felt that he was a very sensitive child. “It’s not a criticism,” she quickly amended, “but his little heart is right on his sleeve, you know?”

Karen did know it. 

No matter how many times Roger let them down, Jake always opened his heart right back up to him. 

It still crushes Jake every time when things go south again.

Karen sighs as she places a platter of pork chops on the table.

Roger called that morning. 

He said he wanted to be a family. 

“I’ve changed,” he insisted. He’d begged her to let him come by the house to see both of them, but she refused. She couldn’t risk Jake’s disappointment if things didn’t work out. Instead, she agreed to meet him for dinner where they could speak alone. If things went okay, she’d think about letting him back into the picture.

The doorbell rings, their guests arrive, and Jake ambles back into the dining room while she opens the front door with a smile. 

Jake is abnormally quiet during the meal. Karen wonders if he’s uncomfortable around men, or if he’s upset about something. She thinks about her little boy who can chatter away so persistently that he forgets to breathe, and her heart aches. 

She casts a furtive glance at Raymond and tries to start a conversation that will draw Jake out of his shell, “Jake, why don’t you tell Mr. Holt what you want to be when you grow up?”

Jake swallows a forkful of potatoes. He shoot a furtive glance her way before he answers, “A cop.” Karen prods him to say more. She asks him to tell everyone why. He thinks before her says, “I want to help people. Like Officer Jackson. He was really nice to me. And he had good stories.”

“I bet Mr. Holt has good stories too. Why don’t you ask him to tell you some?”

Sure, it’s a little gruesome, but Jake has liked cops ever since Officer Jackson had sat with him while his partner sorted out Karen and Roger’s domestic dispute. 

“You have stories too?” Jake perks up. 

“I do,” Mr. Holt says. He launches into one, and Jake leans forward into his seat. One story turns into three, and soon Jake is asking questions at a rapid fire pace that seems to surprise their guests. 

“Can I be a detective? How long does it take memorize the Miranda Rights? What’s a bullpen? I don’t really like writing with pen because if you mess up you can’t fix it. Can I still be a detective?” Jake’s chair tips precariously as he interrogates their companions, who seem faintly amused by Jake’s curiosity. 

For the remainder of the evening, Jake follows Ray around like a baby duck. He peppers him with questions all the while, and they arrange for Jake to visit a police precinct.

Jake grins.

Karen considers the evening a success. 

III. 

Jake makes an effort to keep the tiny desk in his room neat after Holt tells him that it’s imperative for a cop to have a clean workspace. Even with a handful of candy wrappers, crayons, and a plastic badge, it’s still the tidiest spot in the entire room.

There’s a junior police certificate tacked up on the wall next to a framed picture of Jake standing with Holt and his captain at the station. His smile is so wide and genuine that it lights up the room. He’s scrawled the Miranda Rights on a piece of construction paper that’s taped under the photo, and he’s even got a little folder labeled Cases next to one that says Jake’s Homework. 

Karen’s chest hurts when she thinks about the happy child in the photo meeting his heroes and the one she looks at now. 

Officer Martinez tries to keep him comfortable and calm, which she appreciates, but it doesn’t change that fact that the hospital bed makes Jake look impossibly small, and his eyes are still rimmed red. 

When the doctor comes into the room to splint Jake’s broken arm, Officer Martinez picks up on Jake’s distressed body language and sits through the procedure while regaling him with tales of the academy. 

“There,” Dr. Miller announces as he finishes the job. He gives Jake a smile, “I hear you’re an awfully brave little boy, huh?”

Karen strokes her thumb over her son’s uninjured hand and thanks the doctor. Eventually, Officer Martinez has to get back to work, but he ruffles Jake’s hair affectionately before he steps out. 

Jake dozes under the weight of the light sedative and pain medication, and Karen tries valiantly to hold it together for him. It’s a monumental task. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Roger screaming at her, and then Jake getting in front of her.

Roger didn’t mean to break Jake’s arm, but it didn’t absolve him of the blame. 

Jake was in his way, so he shoved him aside. Blinded by his drunken, angry stupor, he failed to account for his own strength, and he pushed him too hard. Jake had fallen into the coffee table. 

The crash and Jake’s pained whimper shook Roger from his tirade, and his face crumpled as she darted around him to her tearful child who was curling protectively around his left arm. 

“Shit,” Roger swore, “Shit, Jake, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean...”

“Get out,” Karen hissed as she drew Jake closer to her. 

“Karen, I didn’t...”

“Get out, Roger!” 

And he tucked tail and ran like the coward he was. 

Apart from the cops that showed up at the hospital to take their statements and the hospital’s social worker, she hasn’t told anyone yet.

She doesn’t call her mother or her best friend, even though she knows Darlene would be their in a heartbeat. She doesn’t call the high school to tell them that she’ll be out for a few days, and she doesn’t bother calling Jake’s elementary school yet either.

It’s a lot to process.

When the doctor returns to tell her that she can take her baby home as soon as they finish his discharge papers, she thinks about the mess that’s waiting for them, the reminder of what transpired in their home, where they should be safe. A splintered table with its contents dumped unceremoniously around it, and the shattered glass of a few ornaments and trinkets sticking to the carpet like tiny, hidden knives. 

She doesn’t want Jake to see it again. Hell, she doesn’t want to see it again. 

Frankly, she doesn’t want to go home at all.

Roger still has a key. 

The police are looking for him, but he could easily get back into the house in the meantime.

She shudders.

She knows he wouldn’t hurt them on purpose. He wasn’t a malicious man, but more of the unaffected, negligent type. The person Roger cared the most about was Roger. 

Still, she didn’t want her baby in the same house as the man who hurt him so badly, even if it was an accident.

She formulates a plan to keep her son safe.

She’ll barricade the doors and sleep on the couch. She’ll drag Jake’s baseball bat out of the garage and keep it next to her. If he shows up, he’ll want to see Jake, who is too young to be dealing with this shit. 

She doesn’t want to see Roger. She doesn’t want to talk to Roger. She just wants to show him she means business.

Hospitals are never quiet, but as the hours stretch later, the noise lessens. There are fewer nurses rushing down the halls, fewer buzzers demanding attention, and fewer alarms pinging and singing at various intervals. The lights dim in the hall, and Karen pulls the curtain shut so Jake can sleep undisturbed. 

The exhaustion perches heavily on her shoulders, and she slumps over with her arms folded on the bed and her chin atop them. 

She’s almost asleep when she hearts footsteps at their door.

“Karen?”

It’s Kevin. 

She sits up, “Kevin? Ray? How...? What are you doing here?”

Ray clears his throat and speaks in a quiet voice, “A companion heard about a domestic dispute with an injury on the scanner, and he recognized the neighborhood as my own. He passed the information along when he saw me.” Ray’s piercing, stoic gaze surveys the room: Karen’s rumpled clothing and smudged eyeliner and running mascara; Jake’s pale face and his arm in a splint. A muscle in his jaw jumps. Kevin’s face hardens in tandem.

“It’s broken,” Karen answers their unasked question. “He has to come back when the swelling goes down to get a cast.” Karen puts her head into her hands, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

The couple shares an unseen look, and then Kevin says, “Why don’t you and Jake stay with us tonight?” 

“Thank you, but we couldn’t impose on you.”

“It would be no imposition. In fact, I insist.”

Within an hour she finds herself in the back seat of the Holt-Cozner car with a lapful of sleepy Jake snoring against her shoulder. When they get back to the house, Ray volunteers to go with her to collect their things for the night, but she admits that she’d rather he stay with Jake. 

“I’ll go with you then,” Kevin offers.

Ray comes around to the backseat, lifts Jake into his arms, and carries him into the house as the car rolls away from the kerb. 

Mindful of the splint, Ray sit Jake down on the couch in the living room. He covers him with a throw, and then he turns on a lamp. If Jake wakes up, he doesn’t want him to wake up alone in the dark. 

It turns out to be the right choice. A neighbor’s dog barks, and Jake startles. He tries to put weight on his bad arm, and then he hisses in discomfort. His eyes are wide as he looks around the room. They relax when he sees Ray.

“Mr. Holt?”

“Hello, Jacob. You and your mother will be staying with us tonight. She has gone with Kevin to get your things.”

Jake curls in on himself in the corner of the couch and plays with a loose thread on the blanket. He doesn’t make look up when he asks in a soft voice, “She’ll come back, right?”

Ray frowns. 

Karen’s worries are warranted. 

He’s now watched this child shift between energetic and cheerful to quiet and fearful too many times now. Jake may as well be two different people at times. 

“Yes, son,” Ray answers, “She’ll be back very soon.” 

Ray doesn’t notice the turn-of-phrase until Jake’s expression changes, but it’s too quick for Ray to figure out what it means. 

IV.

As Kevin skims his monthly calendar, he makes the wry observation that their progression into the holiday season has certainly been eventful. 

Karen gets a restraining order. 

Jake gets navy blue for the wrappings of his cast.

Raymond gets an offer for a promotion to captain. 

Kevin glances up from his desk to peer through the window when he hears a crescendo of raucous laughter. The neighborhood children pack snowballs for ammunition and divide into teams. Kevin spots Raymond’s nephew Marcus, who is staying with them for a few days of the holiday break, next to Jake in the lineup. Marcus is two years Jake’s senior and a foot taller, but they share the same excited grin at the prospect of a good snowball fight. They’re both bundled up in puffy coats, thick scarves, and hats, though Jake’s left arm isn’t through his sleeve. Kevin knows his bulky cast won’t fit through it, and it doesn’t work well with the sling. 

Karen hadn’t kept Jake from playing in general, but she was reluctant to let Jake participate in today’s extensive brawl. Marcus promised to look after him. Raymond did, too, but the boys didn’t know it yet. 

Kevin chooses to observe the battle from the safety of his own home, and it’s well underway before Raymond decides to forego his hiding spot and start systemically taking out the opposition. 

The kids don’t know what hit them. 

Literally.

Kevin huffs a brief laugh at his own joke. 

He’ll have to share it with Raymond later. 

His husband doesn’t reveal himself until there are only a few players remaining. Kevin knows exactly when Raymond chooses to show himself because Jake lets out an excited whoop of noise, and Marcus cheers, “Uncle Ray!”

The game wraps up within fifteen minutes. 

The three participants tumble through the door laughing, but the younger two shiver as they grin. Raymond ushers them to the merry little fire in the living room, and they proceed to shed their warmest layers.

Kevin tsks at the water, but he lets it slide. 

Marcus doesn’t get to spend a lot of time with them, and Jake’s mood’s been in flux since the incident with his father.

At that thought, Kevin’s focus narrows to the small arm in the navy blue cast and standard-issue sling. Both are covered in stars, doodles, well wishes, and names. It looks so cheerful and innocuous to have such painful origins. 

Kevin and Raymond leave the boys to watch TV while they prepare dinner, but they check on them intermittently. 

The third time Kevin slips out of the kitchen, the bright cartoon on the television is all but forgotten. The boys are coloring and talking in low voices, and Jake bites his lip like he’s trying to gauge Marcus’ response to something. 

“My dad’s the best,” Marcus tells Jake. Belatedly, Kevin realizes that Marcus is drawing a picture of his family. The words To Mom and Dad Merry Christmas Love Marcus are scrawled haphazardly in one corner. “He’s a doctor. He saves people’s lives and stuff. It’s really cool. But he’s busy sometimes. What’s your dad do? I haven’t met him, and you don’t talk about him.” 

“He’s a pilot.” 

“That’s cool,” Marcus says. “Does he take you with him on the planes?”

“No,” Jake frowns. He stops coloring. “It’s... I don’t... My mom says Dad isn’t allowed to see me anymore.”. 

Marcus puts down his crayon, “Ever?”

Jake shrugs, “I don’t know. But he didn’t like me that much anyway.” He tries to say it like it doesn’t matter to him, but it’s clear in the set of his small shoulders that it’s weighing on him. “One time he was really mad, and he pushed me, and I broke my arm.”

Marcus’ eyes widen before his expression darkens. 

Kevin decides it’s time to intervene, so he tells the boys to go and wash up for dinner. 

Marcus challenges Jake to a race, and the mood changes quickly. They both dart down the hallway at an alarming pace. Jake leaps over a vase and other obstacles in his path. They’re panting when they reach their destination, and Kevin resists the urge to sigh. At least they no longer look so upset and forlorn. 

V. 

The winter break comes to an end, and the boys return to school. Frigid nights slowly begin to give way to warmer afternoons, and Raymond tends to the perennial bulbs in his flowerbed. 

Jake’s cast comes off just in time for baseball season, and his mood brightens with the weather. Karen signs him up for t-ball again, and he takes to it with aplomb. He comes home from practice with mud and grass stains, and sometimes even manages to tear a hole or two in his clothing. Somehow he loses his hat three times in as many weeks. 

Karen writes his name inside it in her neat script. 

Jake scrawls his name on the brim in thick black sharpie, so he won’t forget it again. 

Jake has t-ball three nights a week, and he goes to therapy once every two weeks. The therapist diagnoses Jake with ADHD and asks Karen if Jake has any other father-figures in his life, like a grandfather or uncle, but they don’t have a lot options there. Her brother Bill is great, she explains, but they differ on their definitions of safety and supervision. 

Karen has no intentions of inviting Roger back into their lives, and right now she’s got no interest in dating. There’s nothing much to do about it, so she focuses on the ADHD. She wants to hold off on medication, so instead she picks up a few books on ADHD from the library and buys Jake a few tangles he can keep in his pocket at school. 

Transitioning to life as a single mom is a challenge, but she’s determined. Roger has no visitation rights at the moment, so she’s on her own and glad enough for it. Her mom is doing much better, but she’s not well enough to keep Gina and Jake every evening, even if she insists it’s fine. Darlene works the night shift at the hospital, so Nana is busy enough with one child running about her apartment. 

Darlene is trying to find a place closer to them, but it’s not worked out so far. New York real estate is rarely favorable. 

Karen’s not sure how she’s going to manage being Jake’s sole parent and keeping food on the table. A public school teacher’s work is never done, and she has to stay after hours a lot. She hates the idea of Jake alone in the house, Jake surviving on frozen pizza, Jake walking to t-ball practice by himself. 

Ray and Kevin offer a solution. 

On Tuesdays when Karen has to run the after-school art club, they pick Jake up from school. It becomes a welcome part of their routine. They do homework and make dinner, Jake measuring spices and liquids while Kevin or Ray handle knives and the oven, and then they pass the baseball back and forth, or Jake practices his swing. Sometimes he helps Ray in his garden. Sometimes Marcus joins them.

It’s nice.

Sure, Jake misses his dad, wonders what he did wrong, why his dad doesn’t love him, but he doesn’t miss the fighting or the screaming, doesn’t miss his dad’s sharp, boozy breath or his mother’s tear-streaked face. 

And spring slowly bleeds into summer.

The days are warmer, the flowers bloom, and kindergarten wraps up with a sunny field day and water balloon fights.

Jake is finding his new normal. 

And then suddenly it’s June, and the neighborhood t-ball team organizes a Father’s Day game the day after his birthday. 

Jake feels a little sick to his stomach when he’s given the flyer and watches the boy’s on his team run to their father’s to show them. He digs the toe of his cleats into the dirt and keeps his head down on his way home. 

He throws the flyer into the trash before his mother can see it, but someone calls her about what she’s bringing to the potluck, so she finds out anyway. 

She sits on his bed with him, brushes his curls out of his face while he runs his fingers over the long scar near his elbow, listens when he says it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t even want to go. 

She holds him when he cries. 

On Saturday they have a small party with Nana, Aunt Darlene, Gina, and a few kids from his class with cake and water guns. Ray and Kevin both have to work, but hey send a present for Jake to open, the brand new baseball mit he’d been eyeing for a week.

It’s fine that his dad doesn’t call or send a card or a gift, even though it really isn’t, and the game looms closer.

His mom sits with him in his bed that night and holds him, tells him how much she loves him and that he’s the best thing that ever happened to her, tries to shower him in love, like she can fill up that part of him that’s been hurt and rejected. She tucks him against her side and tells the story of the day he was born until he falls asleep with his head on her shoulder. 

And then she lets herself cry, just a little, just for a minute, and traces the scars on his tricep. 

On Sunday morning Karen wakes up early to make him his favorite breakfast and coaxes him into his freshly washed uniform. He drags his feet the entire way to the field, but he still helps his mom carry a tinfoil tray of potato salad. 

Some of the kids are already warming up when they arrive. They toss baseballs with their fathers and wear matching team hats, but Jake sticks close to Karen and the folks who are organizing the picnic. 

He chews his bottom lip until it bleeds.

When his mom notices, she digs around in her purse for his necklace with the rubber pendant on the end. She loops it around his neck, wipes the blood from his chin with a napkin, and then he shoves the pendant between his teeth and watches the other kids and their dads. 

“Baby? Don’t you need to go warm up?” she says eventually. 

“I guess,” he mumbles. “I don’t know. I don’t feel good.”

“That’s too bad,” someone says from behind him. “I was looking forward to spending a summer afternoon enjoying America’s favorite pastime.”

Jake blinks and looks up.

Ray and Kevin are smiling at him. They’re born wearing baseball caps, which he’s never seen them do, and they look just like his own. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to practice, Jacob? Raymond did want to see your new mit in action. He even brought his own.”

Jake just stares for a second before a wide grin splits his face in half. 

“You did?”

“Of course,” Ray answers. “Warming up before a game is essential if one wants to play well, and I am sure you hope to win today.” 

“Yeah!” Excited, Jake grabs him by the hand without thinking and leads him out to the field with the other families. 

And Ray is not his dad, but it’s okay, really, because he doesn’t have to be here, and neither does Kevin, who eventually switches out with Ray to help Jake practice pitching. 

They want to be here with him.

On Father’s Day.

And that’s enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I think I may turn this into a series following Jake growing up. What do you think? Comments and kudos give me life. Thanks for reading my first B99 fic! (Lol I can’t believe the title came from a country song)


End file.
